Win These Creative Tools to Support Your Habit
A great way to bolster your daily creative rhythm is to stock up on some creative tools that equip, inform, and inspire you. That’s why, when we decided to get back in the habit of making something every day, we partnered with some of our favorite companies – companies who make stuff that make us want to make stuff (got that?). These partners are sweetening the deal for 28 to Make participants by offering up enviable prizes for aspiring creators this February.
What kinds of prizes you ask?
1. Some Sturdy Notebooks
Once you get in the habit of creating regularly, it’s tough to slow down. Putting pen to paper whenever inspiration strikes is essential to keep the creative juices flowing. Drawing and writing by hand continues to hold an important place in the realms of art, science, and architecture. It captures an element of the creative process that’s nearly impossible to capture any other way. The human element is just so present in handmade work, and it’s a blast to look back at your old notebooks to see how your doodling, handwriting, and overall self-expression has evolved over time.
Field Notes notebooks are a maker’s best friend. Lord knows how many half-baked ideas my notebook has rescued from oblivion on the bus ride home. As their poignant slogan states: “I’m not writing it down to remember it later, I’m writing it down to remember it now.” Founded by prolific designer and industry personality Aaron Draplin, their notebooks are synonymous with quality, consistency, and charm. You can grab one of their ol’ faithful classic 3-packs or splurge on a subscription to their limited edition collections.
2. A Robust Type Library
Building your type library might be daunting at first, but it’s really addicting once you get started. Having a diverse palette of font options to choose from when developing your projects is a huge help. You don’t necessarily need to own hundreds and hundreds of fonts; some of the best designers build their projects using an intimate knowledge of only a select handful. On the other hand, you could opt for purchasing a larger package or library of font families to cycle through. This option can be more expensive at first, so it often makes more sense for teams or agencies.
Whether you decide to start by buying a collection or by purchasing font families one at a time, Fonts.com™ makes the process easy with plenty of tools for browsing and identifying a multitude of fonts. They offer more than 150,000 font products that you can preview, purchase and download. They also have a host of great typographic tips and techniques available for free. If this is getting you excited, you can thank your lucky stars because the do-gooders at Fonts.com are giving away great typographic goodies to our #28toMake Sweepstakes winners.
3. A Collection of Graphics, Images, and Assets
While you’re developing your own visual voice and style, it doesn’t always make sense to personally create every single asset for every single project you produce. Using pre-existing graphics, templates, and images gives you the ability to focus on the elements of design that you’d rather be spending the most time on right now.
The folks at Creative Market are big proponents of the idea that beautiful design should be simple and accessible to everyone. In practice, that translates to a vibrant marketplace where designers can buy and sell just about any kind of creative asset you can imagine. That means that, once you’ve honed that hand lettering technique of yours, you can sell it as a font to someone who wants to spend their time perfecting the UX of the site their building (and you can buy the template they created while you’re at it).
As an added bonus, 28 to Make participants can use the discount code 28toMake starting this Sunday til 3/1/16 to get 15% off any purchase.
4. Unexpected Inspiration
It is far too easy to take yourself far too seriously. With so many products aimed at making your life more comfortable, productive, and connected, you can quickly lapse into thinking those are the metrics of success for your daily life. Building your personal brand is really important if you’re trying to launch a creative freelance career, but the ability to laugh at yourself is just as important as developing your hard skills.
Companies like Tattly are here to remind you that the coolest parts of you have been around since you were a kid. If it’s been a while since you played with temporary tattoos, it’s been too long. They have an insanely large selection of incredibly well-designed little gems of delight, including designs from 28 to Make instructors Kate Bingaman-Burt and Erik Marinovich.
5. Tips from the Pros
No artistic diet would be complete without a healthy dose of expert advice. We believe that good design is a tradition we share and perpetuate together. Learning from prolific luminaries is a great way to connect with the heritage we all share as designers.
Our online design classes are taught by some of the most accomplished pros in their field, including legendary poster designer James Victore and design’s voice-of-reason-in-residence Steven Heller. All of our classes are put together with a great deal of thought and care, with one question driving the whole process: “What do designers need to know?” We’re thrilled to be giving away vouchers for course credit to 20 lucky 28 to Make participants.
How to Win
1. Sign up for 28 to Make (it’s free!)
2. Take photos of the things you make each day.
3. Share your photos on Instagram with #28toMake.
That’s it! We’ll be randomly selecting 5 winners each week in February 2016. Good luck!
